


I will live in the past, the present, and the future

by middlemarch



Category: A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens, Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, American Civil War, Angst, Doctors & Physicians, F/M, Gen, Gift Giving, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:13:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28287540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Mary was gone: to begin with.
Relationships: Emma Green & Mary Phinney, Emma Green/Henry Hopkins, Jedediah "Jed" Foster/Mary Phinney
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8
Collections: Mercy Street Crossover Advent Silver and AU





	I will live in the past, the present, and the future

The package arrived intact, its sturdy brown wrapping much battered by its journey from the North, but without any frank tears. In a black ink of a luster and strength now rare in Alexandria, the recipient’s name was firmly written in copperplate: Baroness M. von. Olnhausen, Mansion House Hospital, Alexandria, Virginia. No one knew what to do with it and that in and of itself, was the topic of much idle discussion over ever-weakening cups of chicory and some attempt at pastries that could not claim the name of cakes.

“We should open it,” Byron Hale declared, stroking his whiskers in what he must have thought was a sagacious fashion. “It could be something perishable, some delicacies that Nurse Mary would not want us to waste.”

“You’ve only to look at it to know it’s not a Christmas pudding, nor mince pie,” Matron said. “No matter how yer ravenin’ appetites seek to deceive you, Dr. Hale.”

“It might be preserves, plum or cherry, or jellies. Confectionery, marchpane she was always fond of, or perhaps a quantity of lemon humbugs,” Byron replied, clearly unwilling to admit defeat. “If you’d let me smell it, I’d know for sure, I’ve the nose of a bloodhound—”

“That’s your boast?” Jed scoffed. It had given him a queer pang to see Mary’s name, her formal title and that solitary M she would use to sign any brief memorandum, all he had in place of billet-doux. To be reminded she was gone and how and why; how her usual serenity had been replaced by apprehension, her dark eyes fever-bright, unseeing. The guilt he carried at letting her go was matched only by his loathing for McBurney. He would not have thought there was space for both within him, but with Mary gone, he discovered in place of his soul a torturous abyss. Sarcasm was his refuge when he could not wield a knife. Byron, in his way, was a blessing.

“Jealousy is unbecoming to a Union officer, Foster,” Byron said. Miss Green, who’d been mother for the coffee-pot, looked anxiously at them both, unsure of how to settle their imminent disputation but knowing someone must. It would have been Mary only a month ago, with some apt epigram or interesting anecdote, or even a short, quelling glance of her own directly solely at Jed. 

“When I carried it in, I must say it seemed too heavy to be any sort of victuals,” Henry offered. “As much as we may all long for something of the season. A jug of cider wouldn’t go amiss, even if we haven’t the spices for mulling it.”

“That is your favorite?” Miss Green said. Jed had to admire her demure persistence at something like a flirtation with Henry, whose endless shy yearning for her might have made a lesser woman throw up her hands in despair. Emma Green, whose slender white hands had kept a Connecticut boy’s jejunum from getting tangled with his jacket’s buttons an hour before she poured out their coffee, was made of far sterner stuff. 

“Whether it is or ‘tisn’t doesn’t matter a whit, for it’s clear that’s not what’s been sent—jugs of cider would be in a crate if they made it here at all,” Anne Hastings said before Henry could reply. “You might as well open it and then we’ll know for certain what arrived for Nurse Phinney.”

“But it was addressed to Baroness von Olnhausen, wasn’t it?” Emma said. “It must be from family. It may be something meant only for her eyes, something private, of a sentimental nature.”

“Sentimental? What utter rot! Say what you will about the woman and Lord knows I have, but she hadn’t a sentimental bone in her body,” Anne exclaimed.

“Still, Miss Green isn’t wrong,” Henry said, the few words making Miss Green flush becomingly. Knowing Henry, that was not his intent, merely an unexpected boon, pretty Miss Green’s rosy cheeks figuring prominently in Henry’s perpetual agonies. “The package was sent to Nurse Mary and she ought to be the one who opens it. We should send it to her in Boston.”

“I’ll do it,” Jed offered. It would be costly and none of them had an extra dime to their name except possibly for Hale, who’d be sure to give in to his base urges and reveal the contents, first to himself and then surely to the rest of the staff. Mary would have been the one offering to send on a misplaced gift if she’d been with them. 

“And we’re to trust you?” Hale guffawed. He was much given to guffawing when he wasn’t bellowing or grousing. He had a lovely tenor singing voice but he could not communicate exclusively via recitatif.

“Now, now, Byron,” Anne said. “You needn’t cast aspersions. I’m sure we’re all quite familiar with Dr. Foster’s myriad shortcomings. And his black moods. Especially since Nurs—”

“Dr. Foster, would you come look in on Private Marley with me? I promised him I’d ask if he might get up from his bed, he complains quite bitterly he feels positively chained there,” Emma interrupted quickly. “But I would not want to risk his recovery.”

“Of course, Nurse Green,” Jed replied, tucking the package beneath his arm as they left the sitting room. It was a far cry from tucking Mary’s arm through his, but to have some connection to her, however tenuous, was precious.

* * *

“She’d want you to open it,” Matron said early the next morning as Jed was buttoning his overcoat and preparing to take the package to the mail depot. The only boy who needed surgery was young Dickenson, who’d caught Anne’s eye; Jed trusted she could keep the irrepressible private from coming to any real harm under Byron’s knife.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Mary,” she said, leaving off any title.

“I don’t understand,” Jed replied.

“I know you don’t, boyo, which is why I’m explaining this to you. She’d want you to open it. To know something about her the others don’t,” Matron said. Jed sensed he’d just escaped being cuffed about the head despite the grey at his temples and in his beard. “To imagine her, remember her when it seems you let her go off into the night, sick as ever a woman was, without a by-your-leave.”

“That’s not how it happened—”

“No? Appears that way, you sulking and skulking round the hospital but not doing the least thing to find out how she’s doing,” Matron said. “She’s still alive, if you care to know.”

“She sent you another letter then?” Jed asked. Matron had read the last one, the only one; Mary had addressed it to them all and he thought that was message enough to him.

“No, you nincompoop, I’ve the Sight. I’d know if she were lost to us. To you,” Matron said. “Since you didn’t grasp the import of the letter she sent and you’re jest wallowing around. Open the damn present and then you can send it on. I saved all the twine it came with.”

She started to walk away, gesturing to a quantity of twine sitting beside his gloves.

“You’re not curious?” Jed called.

“I told you, you vast dolt, I’ve the Sight,” Matron called over her shoulder. “I already know what’s been sent and what’s been meant. Mind you open it in her little cubbyhole, away from prying eyes.”

It was easy enough to follow Matron’s directions and there was no remark worth her further condemnation. Jed stepped into the oversized closet Mary had used for her work with the camp followers; it was dusty but otherwise neatly appointed, one small window letting in the weak winter sunlight. It didn’t not require any degree of surgical skill to slip the gift from its brown paper, the gold stamped title catching the little light: _A Christmas Carol._ In for a penny, he opened the flyleaf, bracing himself only to find a brief inscription, _To our dear Mary, May we share a ‘merry Christmas’ even if we are far apart—C. & T._ A present from her family then or some close friend, one who called her dear and wished to be close, a gift he would never have thought to send her, the story one of dreams and regret, of suffering, abandonment, and second chances. The gift-giver, perhaps her sister or aunt, wanted only to remind her of happier times, thinking she would be alone, away, working on the wards instead of nestled in the bosom of her family. She had returned to them but desperately ill, alive if Matron was to be believed, but how much joy could the season bring her? If she had not fallen ill, what gladness she would have brought to them all with the gift, proposing a reading of the book or a tableau, even a toast with whatever vintage Hale and Hastings could find among Bullen’s squirreled away leavings, “God bless us, every one!” her smile so bright and tender as she took a sip.

How could he send the book back to her without letting her know something of him? She could not divine his thoughts from the touch of his hand on the cover, his finger tracing her name. He could not go to her, still married, still needed to treat the boys and wait to see what fresh havoc each day brought—he could not claim their attachment was enough for a furlough, that his arrival would be acceptable to Boston society. The inscription was even more than he was allowed, something permanent, that she would need to explain. He glanced at the scratched table she’d used as a desk, spied a scrap of foolscap and the stub of a pencil. It would do. If she was the one to see if, she would understand and if not, he would not have revealed more than he ought; one line from Dickens could not be out of place amidst so many others. He wrote lightly, the grey cursive like smoke, ephemeral.

_You have been the last dream of my soul—J._

He opened to the first chapter and placed the torn paper among the leaves like a marker. A talisman. One day, he hoped she would tell him if it had been enough.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from A Christmas Carol but Jed quotes A Tale of Two Cities.
> 
> The summary is a variant of "Marley was dead: to begin with."


End file.
